Pipeline 2 - Jet Pack Jones Rough Modeling

Planning

Topology Guide

  Before modelling the head, we have to break it down into parts. The head is made up of 5 sections, which are the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, and the areas around the mouth/eyes. These areas are shown in loops, and topology should flow in the same way. This placements of loops via quads allows the the maximum about of movement for expressions and movement. This is the guide explained to us by our tutor for how to proceed with the modelling of JPJ's head.

  Topology should start with sketchy placements, working towards greater detailing. Working in a looser style allows for better planning.

Rough Blocking

 To sculpt the head correctly, it's best to create a temporary eye so to gain the correct volume and scaling in the cheeks/ head. Using a NURB Sphere and rotating it so the poles are front facing, we place it in correlation to the orthograph (checking both the side and front views). So to avoid squishing, we using the scale tool to keep it perfectly round and uniform. 

NURB Sphere Scaling

  Once Happy with the placement and size, its vital to remove the history and freeze its transformations. This will help us in the future. Placing it on to a layer/ renaming it, we apply a Lambert material and create a Ramp Shader (U Ramp) under the Attributes. 

  With the ramp in place and switching to Interpolation (making colour separation shaper), the design for a temporary pupil can be created with blue being the iris. Getting this right involved toggling between non-shaded and wireframe views (4 and 6 on the keyboard).

Temp Eye

  To start creating our head, we used a polygon square with subdivisions height and width set to 2. Deleting half the square and making sure its centered will allow us the mirror the model when needed, creating a whole head.

  From here, we placed some loops and moved vertices around to give us our starting point and volume. When reaching our maximum sculpting capacity with our current set of loops, we created space and add more geometry. We have to make sure our spacing is even and working in a flow around the head so to avoid buckling/ deformation. This also means that when we move vertices, we should move them on a more global scale (although this will become more localised the more detailed the model becomes). 

Adding and Moving Geometry

  As we continued to add geometry, the back of the head get left alone as we concentrate more on the front. Working from the top downwards enables us to keep our most import loops where needed though the eye, nose, ears and mouth. Also, it's good to note that at this early stage, it best to leave room for the nose to be constructed at a later stage. Vertices should be placed through the mouth on the orthographics so to gain a sense of placement.

  When happy with he progress of the modelling (again kept loose at this point), it was time to think about the ears and neck. For the ears, vertices and loops are created to act as markers and the required faces then deleted. The same is done for the opening of the neck.

Ears and Neck Faces Removed

  Mirroring our model gives a better picture of how the geometry is progressing, and tells us if any areas need changing. Once mirrorsed, you can either delete half of it and continue or used the mirror X tool to work on both sided at the same time. (if there is misalignment in the mirroring of our vertices, we can selected them down the middle in the top view, scale them and then snap the back to the center. This should help).

  At this point, the head is quite sharp in the middle, but will change as the modelling becomes more detailed. 

Mirrored Early Stages

  With both side of the model present, we selected all the faces around the the lower mouth region and use the extrude tool with the offset to bring both sides together as much as possible without overlapping. Then, we deleted the faces away to create a opening for the mouth. The edges and vertices was then brought upwards to create a effective lip line.

  Continuing to tweak on a global scale stop any buckling around the model.Three Vertices was arranged around the corner of the mouth so make the lips connect and give a sharper edge. More loops was then placed around the lip line to allow a softer transition (holding SHIFT meant that maya will calculate the halfway point between two edges). 

Mouth in Place

 With the mouth done, we do the same with the eye. Removing half the model again and  using the orthographs, we selected the planes around the eyeball and deleted them, bringing the edges inwards to frame the eye ready for more geometry.

Before Deleting the Geometry for the Eye

Making Room for the Eye

  Using the extrude tool, we brought in the edge so to frame the eye better. Once done, we turned our attention to correcting the geometry around the back of the head so to give it a better shape. This was done by removing a edge running into the back of the ear and using the multi-cut tool to continue the curve around the back of the head. Also, we strengthen around the brow to give it a more square appearance and to keep in alignment with our drawings.

Framing the Eye and Brow

Cleaning Up the Back of the Head

 In the earlier stages, it best to clean up as the model becomes harder to change with denser geometry.